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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Bedford Historical Slave Foundation

click on photos to enlarge

212 Court Street . Bedford . VA
Old AME Church . 1904

Back in November I was driving around Bedford and noticed this...so interesting and I am anxious to learn more about it!
Here's some of what I found from their press release:BACKGROUND
The foundation’s investigation into slave-era Bedford County was triggered by the recent
discovery of a 19th –century gravesite on Rt. 460 in the Town of Bedford. The site contains the
remains of more than 20 individuals who were presumably enslaved on Lowry plantations.
Enslaved African-Americans (about 11,000) made up 44% percent of the Bedford County
population in the mid 1860’s. Genealogical and advanced DNA research has already been
initiated on dozens of families whose names are associated with slave records from 1850 -
1870 . The Foundation intends to document each identified family’s history in the county .

The Foundation will be housed at a former AME (African Methodist Episcopal) church that was
donated by the Lynchburg District United Methodist Church. The church, located next to the
County Court House at 212 Court St. Bedford VA. was founded around 1887. The current
structure was erected circa 1904. The structure will be renovated and will house a state-of-theart
computer system as well as , archival materials including family stories in high-definition
images, videos, family trees and related documents. Educational classes will be made available
to the County School system.

Hi Tanya, what a wonderful treasure Bedford County will have! It's hard to know where we are going if we don't know where we've been. I appreciate you sharing this bit of local history, I hope to see you again.

Thanks for sharing this. From my experience, there's a lot of misinformation spread about slavery and places like this will help straighten the historical record. Love that old church which looks very well kept!